Herbarium
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A collection of dried plants or parts of plants.
"With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…]"
- 2 a collection of dried plants that are mounted and systematically classified for study wordnet
- 3 A building or institution where such a collection is kept.
Example
More examples"With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…]"
Etymology
From Latin herbārium. Doublet of arbor.
Related phrases
More for "herbarium"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.